Journey Forward: How to Use Journaling to Envision and Manifest the Life You Always Wanted

One day after writing an unquestionably negative journal entry I remembered thinking what a waste of time to relive undesirable moments. Getting things out of ones system is one thing but that should not be the only outcome I get from journaling. Then I thought what if instead of recalling and then reliving on paper or electronic document a moment I disdained I instead imagined my best life and I wrote about that? What if I wrote about my best life my imagined desired life first thing in the morning before I did anything else? What if even when I have an unfortunate experience I write about that experience in the past tense envisioning a moment in the future when that experience will only be a memory of how far Ive come professionally or how far Ive grown as a person? Over the years Ive learned neuroscience and psychiatry support this exercise of journaling forward. The cliff notes non-neuroscientist and psychiatrist version of the journaling forward story is the brain does not distinguish between prior memories and future ruminations. Journaling forward allows me to create future hopeful moments and pleasant dreamt chronicles. Journaling forward is essentially self-programming my mind for a type of enjoyable time travel. Rather than dwelling on past events that saddened me and left me profoundly depressed or worse I wrote about how I imagined living my best life. When confronted with a situation that didnt go as desired in reality I wrote about a future event featuring the same circumstances where the virtual outcome was the one I wanted.In the past many years that Ive been journaling forward Ive found myself less depressed. Ive also been able to do a better job managing the anxiety very often associated with a pending bout of depression. In short journaling forward allows me to reduce the usually engulfing and long-lingering effects of anxiety and depression. And there have been surprising bonuses from journaling forward. A number of the things I wrote about manifested themselves in my life. From writing books giving a TED Talk being invited to keynote public and private engagements and being featured in national publications and media outlets throughout the county journaling forward has been a fantastic way to keep me living in the moment. Forward journaling has helped me keep my sanity. It also motivates me to remain faithful to my PVP (personal value proposition) living my life with joy on purpose so that daily I may help serve and make sure others know that their life matters.So thats how we got here. Thats why Journey Forward now exists. Thanks to a lifelong friend nudging volunteering me to share what helped me deal with depression get through the overwhelming despair caused by the events like the Pandemic and manage the daily trials and tribulations of life Journey Forward is a book today. I hope that you find some value in Journey Forward. Moreover I hope that you will now journal forward the life you always imagined living too.